We want our writers, our poets, our storytellers to make rainbows, not black or white nor even simply varied shades of grey. Ned Randle, who touches all three of these descriptions, paints in hues we don’t often want to see, but occur in nature, human nature, regardless of what we want. I think Jerry Baxter, would agree with this assessment.

In Baxter’s Friends, we come in at the present, return to the past, where there are always echoes weighing, weighing down on Baxter, Ferguson, Mary Ann, Mitch and everybody we meet in this fantastic novel. And as a reader we wonder aloud – how can anybody envision a future when they are walled in by the past? Yet, while the walls are varied, and plentiful, and seemingly merciless…Baxter believes that while one prison might mean confinement, there may yet be another prison, which is actually freedom. But will he still believe this at the end of his rope?

What is true? What is just? What is true. What is just. What is true versus what is just. All of this versus what is right. Jerry Baxter drifts between these words and worlds and by the end the early proclamation of his lawyer ring so remarkable true, “Everyone has his own sense of justice”. But just because there is justice, doesn’t mean that there is always peace.

-Mr & Mrs Garbanzo

Garbanzo Literary Journal

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“You might think, from reading the back cover, that you know what Baxter’s Friends is all about. You might be wrong. Mr. Randle will skillfully take you on an intimate journey through the mental meanderings of two different men who, perhaps, aren’t so different after all…”

Leave a Reply

Search the Site

Newest Releases

Jerry Baxter’s father liked to sing the old cowboy song, “O bury me not on the lone prairie …” when he drank. Ironically, Baxter and his two good friends, Hugh Ferguson and Al Mitchell, are soon to be buried alive, and the hole they are digging for themselves is getting deeper all the time. …

Reviews

Shows real promise... Baxter’s Friends left me hoping Randle spends more time at a keyboard than he does in a courtroom. Read more.

- Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Ned Randle’s poetry collection Running at Night often touches upon the most humdrum aspects of life, and yet somehow Randle always manages to communicate the sheer beauty and wealth of possibilities... Read more.

- Sarah Rae, Poydras Review

When we read through Running at Night, we are reminded that while we all feel each and every one of these illustrious emotions, it is still a gift to know how to pull forth the... Read more.

- Mr. & Mrs. Garbanzo (The Garbanzo Literary Journal)

Running at Night …is a courageous book of witnessing. It takes the reader through dark paths on fast foot. The poems are written with a sure hand, the images right... Read more.

- Ariana D. Den Bleyker, Emerge Literary Journal

In recognizably American fashion, [Randle's poems] reach from the ground on which he lives to dreams earned and known. Read more.